Two days ago, my boyfriend told me that he had noticed a swelling in my neck around the voicebox. I hadn't noticed it myself until he drew my attention to it. It's soft and smooth, and shaped like a horizontal hourglass. I don't feel ill, except that I ­occasionally find swallowing ­difficult. He wants me to see my doctor – do I really need to? No, it won't settle, and yes, see your doctor. You almost certainly have an enlarged thyroid gland, and the fact that your swallowing is ­beginning to be affected probably means that it is also enlarging behind the top of your breastbone, where it is ­compressing your oesophagus ­below your larynx, preventing food from passing ­easily down it. Your doctor will almost ­certainly refer you urgently to a ­thyroid specialist.

I have developed a thin beige/brown line that extends from the base of my thumbnail to the end. The best explanation I got for it was trauma, the worst cancer. However, my GP took one look and told me it was ­nothing to worry about. How can he tell?You may not remember doing so, but it seems to me that you have probably banged your thumb at some time on the nail bed from which the nail grows. The slight ­deformity in the nail bed that has been left has caused a tiny gap between the underside of the nail and the tissue below, which leaves the discoloured line. Cutting the nail won't make any ­difference – the flaw in the nail bed will still be there, so the line will still appear. The good news is that if the problem were a cancer, such as a melanoma in the nail bed, the lesion would r­emain as it is, and not extend with the nail as it grows outwards. So it certainly doesn't sound like cancer. Another ­possibility, a splinter haemorrhage, in which a tiny clot lodges in an ­artery under the nail, would fade with time. As that is usually linked to more serious disease, that's very unlikely, too. To settle any doubts, ask for a dermatological opinion, ­although if your GP has ­already ­decided that it is benign, it's very likely that your specialist will think the same.